Thinking and Writing Together: Institutional Pedagogy and Felix Guattari

Institutional pedagogy is a radical educational practice that began in France in the first half of the twentieth century. It aims to transform the material context of learning in order to empower students to collectively take responsibility for their own lives. As an analysis of the effects of this practice on the work of Felix Guattari, the purpose of this article is twofold. First, it aims to describe the theoretical and practical crosspollination that occurred between the two movements of institutional pedagogy and institutional psychotherapy. Second, it argues for a new methodology for reading the published works of Felix Guattari in the context of institutional pedagogy. The article begins with a brief analysis of the work of Celestin Freinet, followed by an account of the development of his techniques by Aida Vasquez, Fernand Oury, Jean Oury and Guattari. After showing how these practices informed Guattari's work as a political activist, in the final section I argue that we should treat the figure of Felix Guattari as a special kind of 'writing machine'.